"Einar owns me." So begins Judith Lindbergh's mesmerizing chronicle of three women navigating the treacherous waters of love, vengeance, faith, and deception in the first Viking Age settlements of tenth century Greenland. Taking its inspiration from Old Norse sagas, The Thrall's Tale tells the story of Katla--a "thrall" or slave and the daughter of an Irish Christian captured in a Viking raid--as she sets sail with her master, Einar, and his household from Iceland in A.D. 985.
Heading across the stormy North Atlantic toward an unknown future in Greenland, Katla attracts the attention of two very different men, one who will scar her life forever and one who will redeem it. In Greenland, Katla is brutally raped by her master's son, then shunted off to the household of Thorbjorg, a much-maligned seeress and healer. In this unforgiving hinterland with the enigmatic prophetess and her outcast thralls, Katla gives birth to Bibrau.
Even as an infant, the child is infused with the savagery of her conception. She is taciturn, reclusive, and suspected by many to be a changeling. But Thorbjorg, following a vision from her patron god, Odin, takes Bibrau as her apprentice and tutors her in the ancient pagan ways of healing and prophecy.
When Christians arrive in Greenland, tensions flare as the community is torn between faiths, old and new. Katla embraces Christianity, the beloved secret teaching of her long-dead mother, while Thorbjorg senses her world slipping away. Meanwhile, Bibrau, twisted by bitterness and perversion, uses her growing power for good or evil at her whim, inflicting her will on her mother, Thorbjorg's household, and the vulnerable Greenland community.
The Thrall's Tale is a masterpiece of historical fiction, re-released for the first time since its publication in 2006. Deeply researched, vividly imagined, and exquisitely written, this extraordinary tale is a chronicle of love, savagery, and revenge at a turning point in history when Christianity first penetrates the pagan Viking sphere.
